Lufthansa is to base its initial Airbus A350-900 airliners at its Munich hub from the start of next year, the airline has confirmed. The first ten of the type it has on order will replace A340-600s at the Bavarian hub and will debut on flights to Delhi and Boston from January 2017.
The German flag carrier has acquired the modern generation airliner to replace its older, less-efficient, four-engined A340-600s on scheduled routes from its Frankfurt and Munich hubs. It has ordered a total of 25 A350-900s and continues to plan the deployment of the remaining 15 aircraft.
"We are delighted that we are able to offer the most modern aircraft type to our long-haul passengers flying out from Munich. The A350 also constitutes an active step towards noise protection", said Thomas Winkelmann, Chief Executive Officer of the Lufthansa Hub at Munich.
The airline currently has 26 long-haul aircraft based at Munich, comprising 19 A340-600s and seven A330-300s. The switch from the A340-600 to the A350-900 will see little change in capacity, but will result in the removal of a First Class offering. Lufthansa will configure the A350-900 in a three-class arrangement seating 293 passengers: 48 in Business Class, 21 in Premium Economy and 224 in Economy.
The main growth area for Lufthansa’s long-haul network from Munich this decade has been in North America – flights have been resumed to both Denver and Miami, while new links have been established to the Canadian cities of Toronto and Vancouver.
Analysis of schedules data from intelligence provider OAG shows overall capacity to North America has risen 13.6 percent since 2010 with double-digit year-on-year growth forecasted for the Vancouver (up 32.7 percent), Toronto (up 22.3 percent) and Washington (up 21.8 percent) for this year (versus 2015).
In Latin America, Mexico City joined Sao Paulo in the carrier’s Munich long-haul network from 2014, while in the Middle East, Tehran, Iran will join Lufthansa’s existing links to Dubai, Riyadh and Tel Aviv from this year, as well as Cape Town in Africa. However, this growth has been offset by cuts to the airline’s Asian network from Munich. In the last ten years flights to Bangkok, Singapore and Tashkent have all been suspended. Tokyo Haneda is Lufthansa’s only new long-haul Asian destination from Munich, albeit this was simply a result of the switch of its existing Tokyo service to Narita International Airport.
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